The Grifting of America, Part 5: The Plastic Scam
Why recycling does not work and what they have always known.
by Quin Halliwell | June 5, 2025
“They told you to rinse your yogurt cup. They didn’t tell you they were lobbying to make sure it never got recycled.”
🗽 The Scam Behind the Bin
This isn’t about Trump.
Not directly, anyway.
This is about a deeper rot.
One that Trump didn’t invent, but absolutely represents:
The idea that if you lie confidently enough, distract loudly enough, and blame someone else fast enough—you’ll never have to fix the thing you broke.
That’s the story of recycling in America.
It’s not broken. It was built to fail.
And just like every other grift we’ve covered in this series—student debt, health care, corporate bailouts, political donations—this one ends the same way:
The people responsible profit.
The rest of us clean up the mess.
🔄 How They Rigged It
Remember those tidy blue bins? The “chasing arrows” symbol? The classroom posters that taught us how to sort cans and cartons?
That wasn’t a grassroots movement.
It was a public relations campaign created by Big Oil and Big Plastic — ExxonMobil, Coca-Cola, Dow Chemical, and friends — not to solve a problem, but to shift the blame for it onto you.
📎 Is Plastic Recycling A Lie? Oil Companies Touted Recycling To Sell More Plastic : NPR
They knew as early as the 1970s that recycling plastic was economically unsustainable. But if they could make the consumer feel responsible, they could keep pumping out product and dodge any real regulation.
It worked.
Until it didn’t.
📉 The Real Numbers
Let’s set the record straight:
Only 9% of all plastic in the U.S. is actually recycled.
The remaining 91% ends up in landfills, oceans, or incinerators.
Less than 1% of flexible plastics — like bags, wrappers, and film — are ever reused.
📎 Circular Claims Fall Flat Again – Greenpeace – Greenpeace
📎 Global Plastics Outlook | OECD
And the few plastics that can be recycled?
Most are #1 (PET) and #2 (HDPE) — think water bottles and milk jugs. Everything else? Trash in disguise.
🧠 Why It Was Never About Saving the Planet
This was never about sustainability.
It was about delay. About greenwashing. About making sure Exxon and Coca-Cola could say, “We support recycling,” while spending millions lobbying to kill any bill that would actually force them to use it.
Sound familiar?
It’s the same playbook Trump used to delay COVID response.
The same way oil companies delayed climate action.
The same way payday lenders stall regulation by “educating the public” while stealing their savings.
It’s not Trump’s grift, but it is the grift.
He just has the louder microphone.
🌎 The Export Problem They Buried
Until recently, the U.S. had a secret weapon to keep the illusion alive: we shipped our waste overseas.
Mostly to China, Malaysia, Vietnam, and the Philippines.
In 2018, China said no more. They passed the National Sword policy — and our exported waste dropped 70%.
Without anywhere to send the garbage, our fake recycling system collapsed.
Because we never had the infrastructure to handle it ourselves.
Because it was never meant to work here — just to make us feel like it did.
📎 Piling Up: How China’s Ban on Importing Waste Has Stalled Global Recycling – Yale e360
🛑 The New Greenwashing Lies
Now that the original con is unraveling, the grifters have upgraded their pitch.
Instead of fixing the system, they’re renaming the trash.
Terms like:
“Biodegradable”
“Compostable”
“Plant-based plastic”
“Partially recycled content”
Most of these claims are unregulated, misleading, or functionally useless. Many require industrial composting that doesn’t exist in your city. Some contaminate actual recycling streams.
It’s branding.
Not reform.
✅ Who’s Actually Doing Something?
To be clear: not everyone’s in on the con.
Here are some organizations that are cutting through the noise:
🔹 The Recycling Partnership
Works with local governments to improve actual collection systems and reduce contamination in curbside bins. Not perfect, but legitimate.
📎 https://recyclingpartnership.org
🔹 Break Free From Plastic
Global movement tracking the worst corporate offenders and pushing for upstream change — not just cleanup.
📎 https://www.breakfreefromplastic.org
🔹 Closed Loop Partners
An investment group backing real circular economy tech — AI sorting, reusable packaging, and advanced recycling methods.
📎 https://www.closedlooppartners.com
🔹 Canopy
Focused on replacing waste-heavy packaging and paper with regenerative alternatives, like agricultural fiber.
⚖️ What You Can Actually Do
This isn’t about guilt. It’s about leverage.
Here’s what actually works:
🧾 1. Support Extended Producer Responsibility (EPR) Laws
These laws make corporations pay for the waste they produce. California and Colorado already passed them. Your state could be next.
📎 Product Stewardship Institute
🗳️ 2. Vote Local and Loud
Most recycling policy is handled locally. Show up at council meetings. Push for plastic bans and composting infrastructure.
📬 3. Pressure Your Brands
Write. Post. Comment. Email.
Corporations move when the optics cost them more than the packaging does.
🧠 4. Refuse the Guilt Loop
You’re not the problem.
The problem is a system built on volume, deception, and lobbying.
So yes — rinse the can.
But save your rage for the folks who made it your job in the first place.
💥 Final Thought: Same Grift, New Wrapper
This is not a Trump-specific problem.
But it’s 100% a Trump-era logic problem.
Blame the powerless.
Distract with drama.
And profit off the collapse while pretending you’re fixing it.
That’s the play. Whether it’s a MAGA rally, a plastic bottle, or a “sustainability pledge” from ExxonMobil.
If we don’t call it what it is, it will keep happening — under every label they can afford to slap on.
🔗 Want more?
Read [Grifting Part 1], [Grifting Part 2], or [Grifting Part 3].
And if you’re ready to stop sorting lies in blue bins —
Start showing up for the truth instead.